


The Protector

by Storm_Clouds_and_Starshine



Series: in the air of the earth we are home [8]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Story Series | Digimon World Series
Genre: Earthquakes, Gen, Pre-Canon, being seperated from home, i made an entire conlang for this fic, i think so, just to flesh out where this dork came from more, technically???, uhhhh its like 8:30 pm i dont have the braincells for this, underground tunnels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29989401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storm_Clouds_and_Starshine/pseuds/Storm_Clouds_and_Starshine
Summary: A story of how a small Punimon from the expansive Tunnelspace becomes the Leopard Knight Duftmon.
Series: in the air of the earth we are home [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694707
Kudos: 2





	The Protector

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ForestsAndSunsets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForestsAndSunsets/gifts).



> hi its like 8:30 pm and i've been up since seven am and i am Tired
> 
> no fancy ramblings, just take this mess that i havent looked over too much. not entirely sure where i was going while writing this but here have duftmon origin story.
> 
> i made an entire language for these tunnel-dwelling digimon and i am PROUD of it. you will be able to see it Eventually. i'm gifting this to noble because noble was nice and helped remind me of a couple words i needed stuff for in the conlang. also they are my Best Friend so they deserve gifts

His first memory is of darkness and warmth.

  
  


Tunnels, endless tunnels, twisting around in the darkness with only the barest glow of light from the As’mara Green crystals.

  
  


_ We call them this after the first of us to discover them. _ Says the Leader, Shaah Skhra Baashaa Luvaa Iillama, with their red and white and gold armor.  _ We honor them in this way _ .

  
  


He remembers being small, in the darkness, and remembers seeing, with the clarity of a memory that you have revisited over and over and over, the glow of As’mara green crystals, pressed against the belly of the DORUguremon who’d watched him hatch. “Dobaa Aaru Lorururu nana Aaro Roro Aamura-straal Maabaa Daayaashaa” was the name they gave him. 

  
  


_ ( “Person Safe Thick-fur and Dangerous Rigid Armor-bone Beside-of” would be how one might translate it literally - but the better translation would be “The Protector with Blades Beside the As’mara Crystals”. They called him “Dobaa Aaru” for short - The Protector. The others would have difficulty understanding Taanua-loyaah, but he Dobaa Aaru would always appreciate that they did at least try to learn. ) _

  
  


Dobaa Aaru was very small, in his first few memories. There were many other siblings of his, of course - little Petitmon and Sakumon, with the occasional other Punimon or Botamon. Not that there were many of the former two.

The DORUguremon that had watched him hatch was named Rooru Draafahra Aadarrah-llarah Baalaa Gaahra - but she was always called Draafahra Aadarrah-llarah because it was easier to say. She was warm and her fur was very thick, and she would often pick up Dobaa Aaru and his small siblings and carry them around the tunnels when they were too small to travel the tunnels reliably. The tunnels had many, many little cubbyholes and twisting paths, and small things could not learn them yet, in the darkness.

  
  


When he was older, when he had evolved past Tunomon and into his Elecmon form, Draafahra Aadarrah-llarah took Dobaa Aaru to Iiyaaro Uumaara Llasshoma Taanua asha Gaahra -  _ A-safe-place Inside-of Deep Tunnels and Hole-in-the-earth _ . It was the deepest cavern, at the heart of the tunnels, with the singular hole in the very top of the cavern that let them see  _ skhraa _ \- the sky. It had been night time on the surface-world - so the darkness of the sky blended into the ceiling of the cavern, the rock and dirt and clay. But the one thing that Dobaa Aaru remembered best was seeing the stars - compared to the light from the As’mara Green Crystals, the stars were so much  _ brighter _ .

  
  


Dobaa Aaru vowed to himself that if he should have a child, he would make sure that those stars were the first thing they saw - that they should have a name forever blessed with the light of those stars.

  
  


Life began to enter its familiar pattern. He would wake, wander the tunnels (as he often did), learning from the DORUguremon and the Breakdramon and Groundramon and Jesmon and SaviorHackmon about how the tunnels worked and where they could find the best sources of food, or water, or where there were the best places to sleep. The DORUguremon did not stray as much from the burrows that they dug and curled around the babies in - and so they all as a whole did not stray far from those places either. Safety was in numbers, and in staying close to Iiyaaro Gaahra - the  _ Safe-place Hole-in-the-earth _ . 

  
  


Only the Ultimate-levels wandered to the edges of the tunnels - they were strongest, after all, and most likely to be able to protect themselves and the tunnels from attackers. 

  
  


Dobaa Aaru was careful not to get too far away from the others, even with the ways he scuttled through the tunnels, most times alone. It wasn’t like he was going to end up on the surface, but it was good to be careful anyways.

  
  


It was an unremarkable day when the earth shook. This wasn’t too unusual - the earth did shake from time to time. Whether from natural causes or from the Groundramon and Breakdramon and DORUguremon’s burrowing and digging.

  
  


But the earth shook far more violently than Dobaa Aaru remembered it having ever done, and for the first time in his life he feared that the walls of the tunnels may crush him. Curling up as small as he could, all he could do was keep his eyes shut tightly (out of instinct than anything else), and wait for the shaking to end.

  
  


He opened his eyes to what may as well have been an alien landscape - and immediately closed them again, as his eyes were assaulted with more brightness than he had ever experienced before.

  
  


The dirt and stone was tossed up around him, with all sorts of odd leafy things nearby, in more colors than he could name - he had never had a need for the names of colors before, because there was little you could see in the tunnels, but here on the surface there must have been hundreds of them.

  
  


He stayed there, unmoving, for what must have been hours - or maybe longer, he had no way of telling. There wasn’t the gently dripping of streams in the tunnels to tell time with, on the surface. When he opened his eyes again, it was to a lesser degree of light - the sky was as black as he remembered the tunnel cavern ceilings being. This would be his first night - though he would not be able to call it such until later.

  
  


For some time, he wandered, trying to find his way back into the tunnels - but the earthquake had torn up the ground to such extent that he could not figure out how to go back down, and the thought of dying, alone, choked by the same earth that had birthed him was a terrifying one. With that conclusion made, he settled for wandering the surface, in hopes that eventually he would find  _ something _ .

  
  


Eventually, he stumbles upon some digimon. They speak in words that he does not understand, and he doesn’t know what they’re trying to say but he can tell enough from their tones that they’re not happy with him. Dobaa Aaru runs, tripping over his own limbs in terror, before curling up underneath some tree roots.

  
  


He wakes up to see a furred face looking at him, eyes peering over a metal blade on the nose, and for a second he thinks he’s back home in the tunnels. And then the amount of light reminds him that no, he’s far away from home, and won’t be there for a long, long time.

  
  


“道に迷ったのか?” Asks the DORUguremon, her voice worried. “どうしてそんな風に隠れてるの? どうかしたの?”

  
  


“I don’t know what you’re saying.” He tells her, and Dobaa Aaru doesn’t care enough to try and change the waver in her voice. He knows that he sounds scared - and he  _ is _ scared. He’s scared and tired and wants to go home.

  
  


The DORUguremon’s expression softens. “かわいそうに.” She says, more to herself than to Dobaa Aaru. “一緒に来い. 安全な場所に連れて行く.”

  
  


She lifts him in her mouth, gently, like how the DORUguremon back home would do whenever they needed to move someone who was smaller, and the similarity of it was enough to make Dobaa Aaru tear up again.

  
  


Eventually they would come to a large castle, and this strange, kind DORUguremon would shift to her ultimate-level form, and begin teaching him the language that they spoke up on the surface. It was difficult to learn, at first - there were so many words to describe so many things, and reading the digimoji was difficult enough on its on - but eventually, eventually, he did learn.

  
  


His evolution to his Leomon form wasn’t anything to make a fuss about - not to him, at least. It was just a higher form, not anything special. The digimon who had found him and taken him to the castle - he had learned her name was Alphamon - had apparently agreed differently, because she insisted upon having a celebration, even a small one.

  
  


Dobaa Aaru discovered that he liked cake, at least.

  
  


His evolution to GrapLeomon was only eventful in that Alphamon’s youngest brother had achieved his DeathMeramon form that same day. 

  
  


Alphamon (and her older brother, Kiseki) insisted on celebrating  _ both _ of them getting their perfect-level forms just like she had before. Really. It was somewhat exhausting, in all reality.

  
  


. . . aaaaand Dobaa Aaru was just resigned to getting the celebrations when he’d quite literally tripped into his Ultimate-level form.

  
  


To be fair, Duftmon was apparently a rare species, as most Leomon didn’t live long in the first place.

  
  


But still.

  
  


He’d snuck out of the party, in all honesty, and was just standing on one of the balconies of the castle in the cool night air, getting away from the rambunctiousness of the partying digimon. (And what a word, rambunctiousness, what a word he had not known before.)

  
  


He blinked, and one of the digimon with crimson and gold armor was standing beside him - Crusadermon, he thought. (the part of him that remembered being small and growing under the light of As’mara Green crystals mourned that the surface digimon didn’t have individual names.)

  
  


“Wanted to get out of the party?” She prompted, tilting her head to the side.

  
  


Dobaa Aaru - Duftmon, they’d call him now, because he’d kept his origins close to his chest, knowing that for all they’d try to understand, their trying to speak his birth language would just be painful to hear - shrugged. “I suppose so. I don’t really see the point of celebrating my evolution. It’s just a higher form.”

  
  


Crusadermon let out a huff of air at that. “I can agree with that - the circumstances surrounding my evolution were different than yours, but I’d dislike a party thrown over it as much as you seem to do right now.”

  
  


‘Duftmon’ shrugged again. “There seems to be some idea that I’ll be joining the Royal Knights soon.” He comments, staring at the night sky and those brilliantly shining stars. “I’m not sure if that’s a commitment I want to make, however. I am aware that I would be able to provide tactical insight, but I am not necessarily a fighter. I do not entirely believe that Magnamon-san would approve of my joining.”

  
  


Crusadermon seemed to find something amusing in that. “Trust me, Duftmon-san, if he could accept my joining the Knights, then he’ll certainly accept you doing so.”

  
  


There seemed to be an emotional weight tied to that, but ‘Duftmon’ knew enough tact not to mention it. Instead, he asked, “is thee anything you could tell me about the other Knights, then, should I be asked, and should I accept?”

  
  


Crusadermon lit up then. “Oh, there are many things! Do you want battle statistics, personalities, small details, or something else?” When she saw Dobaa Aaru’s indecision around the answer, she launched into rattling off all four options, and ‘Duftmon’ spent a lovely few hours listening to Crusadermon’s ramblings about her teammates. It was kind of sweet, really, how much she respected UlforceV-dramon in particular, and how much she and Sleipmon would tease Dukemon over his crush on Magnamon (and the story of how the red dragon had finally gotten a date with Magnamon did make ‘Duftmon’ laugh). 

  
  


Eventually, it began to become lighter again as dawn approached. Crusadermon left, citing tiredness, and Dobaa Aaru was in no mood to force her to stay. He opted for mode shifting - after a few seconds of puzzling out what he had even done, he shrugged to himself, and curled up in the corner of the balcony and went to sleep.

  
  


As he’d predicted, he was cornered the next day by Alphamon and dragged to the central table where most Royal Knights meetings took place. He hadn’t been expecting all of the Royal Knights  _ and _ their two mothers to be there, but, well. Crusadermon had convinced him, with her tales of all the times they’d needed words rather than fights, and her stories of the group dynamics, and Dobaa Aaru wouldn’t like that he did miss a familiarity like that.

  
  


He did swear to himself that he would find his way back home to the tunnels again, some day. Some day.

**Author's Note:**

> if i at least managed to make this fic make sense then i'll count that as a win
> 
> also fun fact, there aren't any words for colors in the tunnel digimon's language (it's called taanua-loyaah in their own language) bc it was super super dark and you couldnt really see.
> 
> also the use of kanji/katakana for the japanese that he heard before he learned japanese was intentional. it also was all entirely from yandex translator so if there are errors blame yandex. i'm tired, whee
> 
> (side note but i think dobaa aaru is the least enthused about his evolutions out of any of them. he just goes "oh, that's a thing" and moves on. kinda like sleipmon/noodle tbh. he's valid)


End file.
